by Anya Breton
Sweetly Bad
Anya Breton
The stand-alone sequel to Wickedly Good
Drew couldn’t imagine anything worse than being stranded in a two-cellular-bar town with a broken-down Ferrari…until his mother—his own mother!—marked him as a rogue Air witch and canceled all his credit cards. Now he’s kill-on-sight in the Underground, and the only person willing to help him is the curvy human mechanic who towed his car. A strangely delectable curvy human mechanic.
The last thing Erica needs is a yuppie playboy freeloading in her garage. Still, she can’t bring herself to turn Drew out into the sultry heat, even if he is a bit of an ass. A gorgeous, incorrigible, everything-your-mother-warned-you-against ass. Soon the heat isn’t the only thing sultry in the garage and self-control is the last thing on her mind. They agree to a one-night stand, but Drew’s magical secrets are dangerous—and catching up to him fast.
Inside Scoop: Hot and explicit sex with the right (plus-sized) woman just might redeem this bad boy hero.
A Romantica® paranormal erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Sweetly Bad
Anya Breton
Chapter One
Erica didn’t know which was prettier, the Ferrari 458 Spider or the guy slouched pettishly against the front wheel well. The Ferrari was all sleek lines and Italian styling—a model of aerodynamic efficiency. Similarly the guy’s blond coif had managed to hold its artful tousle in the 90-degree temperature. And somehow he looked refreshed in his tan-striped seersucker pants and blue polo despite the sixty percent humidity. On the other hand, the Ferrari was smoking. Literally.
Erica never saw supercars in her garage. The modern models were too well made to break down…and those that did certainly didn’t pass through Stoddard. What would have made this Italian masterpiece spew gray smoke out the back?
She popped the door on the tow truck, wincing as the heat pricked the spot between her shoulder blades. Even in a tank top it was uncomfortable to be outside. Erica smiled for the customer because he’d been outside much longer than she had.
With each step she took, more details on man and car became visible. He was handsome—the kind of handsome that made a woman like Erica uncomfortable. His blemish-free skin was the same “frost beige” color as the interior on the Grand Cherokee she had on the hydraulics back at the garage. Skin like that required either unfair genes or an intense moisturizing regimen. Given the rest of his put-together appearance, Erica leaned toward a mixture of both.
The car? Erica would have given twenty bucks simply for the chance to sit inside the vehicle and run her hands over the dash. Fate had arranged it so she’d get paid to do a whole lot more.
“Hi,” she said to the slouched owner. An amiable smile stretched across her face. “Rough day to get stranded.”
He lifted his well-formed nose an inch. “Rougher because I’ve had to wait nearly an hour in this unbearable heat.”
An hour? On what planet did twenty-four minutes equal nearly an hour? Her hackles rose. And somehow it was cooler by his car than it had been near the truck.
Still, she maintained her pleasant expression as she checked for any loose or hanging parts on the car. “Any idea what caused the breakdown?”
“I’d say it had something to do with the smoke billowing out the rear.” That flat tone implied he was hot and an ass.
Erica maintained her cheer. “Do you have any idea what caused the smoke?”
“Haven’t a clue.” The direction of his voice implied he was watching her survey the bottom of the front bumper. “I paid good money to avoid having to worry about my car.”
He’d paid good money, yes, but everyone ought to worry about their cars. Especially if they owned a foreign supercar. Then again, as a mechanic Erica would feel that way. From the scraped paint beneath the front end, it was clear this guy was careless with his costly vehicle.
Erica popped to her feet, scanning the opposite side of the chassis as she did. A cool breeze lifted the hair off her nape. “Did you hear any noises prior to the billowing smoke?”
“No.” He flapped his limp hand in the direction of the car’s rear. “I was driving. I saw smoke. I drove more. The smoke got darker. I kept driving. The smoke obscured the view. So I stopped. That’s when I noticed the fire.”
“Fire?” Was he serious?
Hazel irises fixed unblinkingly on her. Either he had deadpan humor down to a science or he was sincere.
She glanced at the back of the car then at him. “This car was on fire?”
The male’s indolent lean against the carbon fiber panel grew more pronounced as he crossed a pair of fit arms over his equally toned figure. “There are no other cars here but this one.” He bounced his ass off the panel. “Can we get the thing on the truck so we can get it to the mechanic sometime today?”
Erica battled down the rise of irritation. “I am the mechanic.”
He made a noise that could only be classed a sputter. Erica had never heard the reaction outside of cartoons. She was certain it was an insult.
“I see.” He cleared his throat. “In that case, what do you need from me?”
There’d been no apology for assuming she couldn’t possibly be a mechanic. But at least he hadn’t verbalized his disbelief. Even better, he hadn’t demanded she tow him to her rival’s garage. The last thing she needed was to give her ex more business.
“The keys,” Erica replied. Thinking better of the response, she added, “Or do you need a ride?”
He pushed off his vehicle, standing to his full height of just shy of six feet. He shook a slim smartphone at nothing in particular. “I haven’t been able to get service out…here.” The sour emphasis implied it too was a complaint.
He didn’t like the weather, the location or the company. Was there anything he did like?
Erica didn’t care. The bill for fixing a flaming Ferrari ought to keep the shop in the black for several months. He could bitch and moan all he wanted as long as he didn’t take his car to Jared’s.
She pointed at her truck’s cab. “Come on back where it’s air-conditioned.”
The suggestion earned Erica her first grateful expression out of him.
Oh my. Look at that smile. Definitely unfair genes.
Women—Drew liked them more than he liked money. But this one… He eyed her out of the side mirror.
What was he supposed to make of her?
She’d arrived sweaty, disheveled and with black under her fingernails. If there was one thing he couldn’t abide, it was dirty fingernails. Even in a mechanic.
Did she really think she could fix his car?
She opened the driver’s side door, letting all the cool air out and the humid air in. Drew shifted away from the heat and breathed through his mouth in case she was ripe. There was nothing worse than the stench of body odor mixed with oil.
“It’s a good thing a statie drove by or you’d still be stranded,” she commented once she got the truck on the road.
Drew grunted rather than point out the statie had driven by an hour ago.
“What with you getting no service and all.”
“Is there service at…the garage?” He had a difficult time reconciling the idea of her being a mechanic.
She glanced over. At this distance her eyes were a shade darker than her mocha hair. The mane he suspected fell to the middle of her back had been pulled up into a messy bun, perhaps in her rush out the door. With as long as he’d had to wait, she ought to have had time to look presentable.
“My phone has service at my garage,” she said. “What company do you use?”
“Company?”
There was a barely perceptible tightening to her lips. She thought he was an idiot, didn’t she? Not ten minutes in her company and alr
eady she was on the Drew-is-a-dullard bandwagon.
“Who do you pay for your mobile phone?” She’d lengthened the pauses between her words as if he were slow or special. “Like…I pay Verizon.”
“I have Verizon,” he snapped.
She shot him another glance, her opinion clear in the lift of her brows. He’d been short. But he didn’t care. She thought he was stupid. “Then you’ll be able to get service at the garage.”
“Obviously.”
There was a quiet sigh and then she went silent. He pressed the buttons on his phone every other second to keep the screen alive. The signal strength bars remained elusive.
His driver decelerated for a treacherous curve on Route 9. The Ferrari creaked ominously on the back. Maybe she’d crash the thing and then he’d get a new car using the insurance settlement. He’d had his eye on one of those Tesla Roadsters.
Drew thumbed the button again. One bar appeared. He dashed into the contacts list for his mother’s entry. The bar disappeared.
Tease.
Just like that damn woman his brother had stolen from him.
The bar reappeared. Drew waited, daring it to make a repeat performance. Sure enough, twice more the thing flashed. Two bars appeared. Zero. One. Three.
He smacked his head against the headrest, staring out the side window rather than at the phone.
“Service doesn’t become solid until we get into Stoddard,” she said. “It’s only two bars there but I’ve never had any problems making calls.”
Stranded in a two-bar town. Did it get any worse? Damn good thing his mother would fetch him soon.
There was a last hairpin turn and then the tow truck blinker went on. She turned onto another rural road, heading out where there was surely no life.
Wait now…that house with the boat in the driveway hinted there was a nearby pond or lake. Drew spotted the presence of water out his window, proving his guess. This was probably another of New Hampshire’s many hidden lake communities, now bustling with fishermen and campers fleeing the sultry cities.
The Ferrari creaked several more times through the thirty-mile-an-hour curves. But rather than crash into an RV, thus earning him his Tesla, the driver safely arrived at a garage labeled Pearce Auto-body. Maybe this Pearce would know more about Ferrari fires than his tow-truck-attendant-slash-mechanic did.
She popped the door. Humidity dampened his seersucker pants once more.
“You’ll probably want to head into the office,” she said from outside the truck. “It’s air-conditioned.”
She held up her keys like a ball. He extended his palm though he doubted she’d be able to hit it from this distance. A half-second later the keys were airborne, careening for him. Drew lifted an eyebrow when they landed nicely in his hand.
“Softball pitcher all through high school,” she said, replying to his unvoiced question. “The office is over there on the right.”
She left him in the relative comfort of her cooler “office”—a room with two molded plastic chairs in a hue reminiscent of the Cookie Monster. The focal point was a chipped, U-shaped Formica counter in a complementary shade of citrus. He’d stand rather than subject his rear to whatever crawled all over the chairs.
Two bars of service were steady on the phone just as she’d said. He scrolled his contacts until he reached Amanda Haizea. Drew tapped a foot against the age-stained linoleum while he waited for the ringback to begin. Twice he checked to make sure the phone hadn’t dropped his call. Finally the telltale ring beeped in his ear.
“You’ve reached Amanda Haizea,” his mother’s recorded message said. “I’m away from the phone. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”
The voice mail buzzed. “It’s Drew. My car broke down in the middle of West…Egypt.” He sent a guilty glance at the glass as if the mechanic might have heard him nearly deriding her hometown. “I need you or Ellen to come pick me up. Call me back. I’ll try Ellen if I haven’t heard from you in five minutes.”
Five minutes would feel like an eternity. But his mother wouldn’t be pleased if he didn’t give her a chance to get in touch.
Drew turned his attention to the windows for something to pass the time. The mechanic worked the levers on her contraption with efficiency he hadn’t noted out on the road. Then again, Drew’s nose had been pressed to his phone from the moment he’d sat in her truck. Her care with the car was unfortunate. He’d hoped for at least a dent…anything to take the focus off him when the insurance company called.
One minute down.
Drew focused on the mechanic’s ass as she bent to the Ferrari’s front end. That curvy derrière stretched out the seat of her skinny jeans. Drew’s dick stirred. He looked away, face warming for a reason he’d rather not acknowledge.
Two minutes down.
The mechanic slipped into the driver’s seat. Drew lifted his chin for a better look at what she did inside the cabin. She hopped out and came around to the front, where she set her palms to the hood.
And then she pushed.
Drew made it halfway to the door before he realized what he’d been doing. Had he been about to help push his car in 101-degree weather? No. She could do it on her own. It was what she was paid to do. Besides, the thing must be light because she’d already gone half the distance.
Three minutes down.
The garage door creaked as if it were closing. His mocha-haired mechanic rushed it, ducking beneath Indiana Jones style. All she was missing was a nearly crushed fedora. Drew’s lips twitched at the thought of her wielding a whip. His dick woke again.
He jabbed his finger at the phone’s screen. Four minutes down.
The woman disappeared into the tow truck once again. Drew noted the hour. Shit. He wasn’t going to make it home in time. Had he set the date with Jennifer G or Jennifer H? Phones ought to be able to help with that sort of thing.
Oh! They could. Drew thumbed through his recent calls, picking out the last received call from a Jennifer J as the mechanic pushed open her glass door, letting in another gust of searing heat. She opened her mouth as if to speak but, noting the phone set to his ear, closed it again. She went to do whatever it was women did behind counters at garages.
“Hello?” Jennifer J greeted him.
“Hi, babe,” he said. “I’ve had a bit of car trouble. I’m not going to make it back to meet you.”
Five minutes down.
Drew had an idea. “How about you meet me out here? I’ll treat us to a room.”
Silence. Drew checked the phone yet again to make sure it hadn’t dropped the call. The digits ticked by.
“Jen?”
“Jenny,” she said with frosty emphasis on the final syllable. “I’m Jenny. You’re thinking of Jen Harris.”
With no fewer than three Jennifers in the Manchester greater Aer coven, Drew couldn’t keep track of which went by what moniker. He should have stuck with terms of endearment instead. “So sorry, babe. What do you say about coming for a visit? There’s a lake out here—”
“No. I’m not driving anywhere for you. Don’t call me again.”
“Jenny. It’s…Drew—”
“I know exactly who it is. Don’t call me. Oh, and by the way, you’re shit in bed.”
“I’m…what?”
Dead air. Drew stared at the flashing screen that proved Jenny J had hung up on him. On him. Who did she think she was? He was Drew Haizea, wealthy son of the formidable matriarch Amanda, brother to Priest Haizea.
Ex-Priest Haizea.
Did Jenny’s behavior have anything to do with his brother’s recent scandal and defection? Aston would have a good laugh at his expense if that was the case. The elder Haizea sibling insisted his life was fraught with nothing but headaches because of Drew. Provided Aston wasn’t exaggerating, Drew supposed he was due a headache or two.
Then again, Aston had stolen the girl Drew had been interested in.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir.”
Dr
ew’s attention whipped to the counter ahead of him, focusing on the female who had spoken. The mechanic. He’d forgotten she was in the office with him.
She spared a small smile as she shook a wooden clipboard at him. “Could you fill out this paperwork for me?”
Was there anything worse than paperwork? He grunted but started forward.
A phone rang. Drew glanced at his mobile phone despite the unfamiliar ringtone. The home screen hadn’t changed.
The mechanic twirled and grabbed a cordless phone off the counter behind her with one graceful motion. She had the device to her ear and greeted the caller without needing to look.
“Pearce Auto-body, this is Erica. How can I help you?”
Erica. She didn’t look like an Erica. She looked like a Mona. Or a Chloë—complete with the umlaut.
“Nice to hear from you again, Mrs. Snow,” the mechanic, Erica, said as if it actually were. Two clicks on the computer preceded her next bit of conversation. “Yes, I can get you in Wednesday. Do you just need the oil changed?” She snatched up a broken pencil from the counter. “You have a Dodge Charger, right? 2010? I can get you in at two or three. Will either work? Great. I’ll see you then.”
She scribbled a note beside the computer then swiveled toward Drew. “Let me know if you have any questions.”
He had a question but it wasn’t for her.
Ten minutes had passed. What was his mother doing? It never took her this long to return a call. He’d give her a few more minutes. Drew sank into one of the plastic chairs.
Rather than fill out the paperwork, he lifted his phone again. A love triangle gone bad had left sultry Sophie without a partner. She could be persuaded to drive west for a good time.
Drew found her entry in his list. He curved his lips simply thinking of her fine rack…albeit her fine surgically enhanced rack. The mechanic’s breasts were probably real. And generous. That was easy to tell as she bent over the blue counter, affixing a sticker to a manila folder. Those were definitely real. He did nothing to stop his dick from rising this time.
